Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [16]
My mother thinks that having a city job should entitle me to have a say in its government, that the job should be a sinecure, and I’m not supposed to do any actual work. Many people in New York, like my mother, remember the old Democratic clubs, and the dying days of Tammany Hall patronage, but they never realized that the system died.
“Listen Mom,” I say as forcefully as possible, “there are a lot of hard-working people in that rotten neighborhood, but because they are black, or because they speak Spanish, they can’t live in midtown Manhattan, even in a tenement like this. Even the people who could work, but don’t, are entitled to city services. That’s what I do. I provide a service—an emergency service. And that’s what I like to do for a living. When the day comes that I’m not happy doing what I do, then I’ll transfer, but until then I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I guess you know best, but I still think you’re crazy to work there when you could go downtown and work in a nice clean office.”
“Thanks for the tea, Mom. I’ll call you in a few days.” 1 learned a long time ago that one explanation a day, regarding anything, is enough. If I had to explain everything I did, I’d never get a chance to do anything.
I’m on the Lexington Avenue subway, on the way to the Bronx. The seats are filled with Saturday shoppers returning from a day downtown, and there are a few people standing. Sitting across from me is a dark-haired Puerto Rican girl, about twenty-five years old. I don’t want to stare at her, but the smoothness of her olive skin, the perfect symmetry of her lips, and the brightness of her dark brown eyes have attracted me beyond control. Her synthetic fur car coat is opened, showing a soft blue pleated skirt, which sits above the middle of her thigh. Tucked tightly into her skirt is a white nylon blouse, her full rounded breasts pushing against it. The muscles in her legs slope gently, and the underside of her thighs sit flat on the hard plastic seat. Her whole body moves in small, graceful motions as the train starts and stops at the stations.
Thank God that she has not been victimized by the Seventh Avenue mid-calf skirt. But even if she were, if her legs were completely covered, if I couldn’t see the shadowed triangle where her skirt falls over her thighs, if the nuances of movement were hidden beneath the modern style as she crosses and uncrosses her legs, even then, I would still have her face to look at.
She is made uneasy by my staring, and pretends to read the advertisements plastered all over the car. She is probably wishing she had a book, a newspaper, or anything to focus her eyes on. I’ve taken possession of her beautiful face, and if I had pencil and paper I could sketch her perfectly, even though I know nothing about drawing. Her eyes meet mine occasionally, but she turns quickly away, making a little movement with her lips. I can see as she turns, the soft, almost invisible down at the side of her cheek reflected in the light. How I would like to run the back of my fingers over it in an easy up and down way.
I am trying to look at her now in a different way. She is a human being, I say to myself, with friends, perhaps a husband she loves dearly, children, a life-pattern with ordinary or even extraordinary ambitions, jubilations, and miseries. She probably knows a lot about something, and enough about everything, to make her interesting in ways other than sexual. The train stops, and a man sitting next to her gets off. Maybe I should sit next to her now. The train begins with a jolt, and she has to uncross her leg to regain her balance. She settles in the rhythm again, and recrosses it, generating in my body a return to passionate perception. Stop it. Stop it. Go sit next to her and say, “Hello, my name is Dennis, and I’ve been trying not to look at you in a dehumanizing symbolic way, but as a real person, with feelings and intelligence, opinions and a point